Metascore
72

Mixed or average reviews - based on 8 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 8
  2. Negative: 0 out of 8
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  1. Jul 18, 2020
    80
    Mechanicus is a fun approach to Games Workshop’s universe. It’s addictive, well-designed and incredibly solid gameplay-wise. Even with its small flaws, it is a great choice for Warhammer fans.
  2. Jul 17, 2020
    80
    Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus successfully fuses deep and rewarding turn-based strategy with impressively flexible customisation and some truly excellent world-building. Changes and updates made to the game's difficulty have put paid to most of the main criticisms of the original release's combat balance issues and this Switch port also performs impressively in both docked and handheld modes. Whether you're a huge Warhammer fan who's a long-time player of turn-based strategy games or a complete newbie to the genre as well as the world of the Adeptus Mechanicus, there's plenty to enjoy in what Bulwark Studios has come up with here.
  3. Aug 12, 2020
    77
    A great strategy title with a lot of content. Perfect for those looking for something new and for fans of Warhammer 40K. The latter will be the most tolerant when they see the small issues of this port.
User Score
6.1

Mixed or average reviews- based on 20 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 20
  2. Negative: 8 out of 20
  1. Sep 7, 2023
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view. My main complaints:

    - It is a simplified Xcom with a Warhammer skin. I found myself thinking 'I could just be playing Xcom'.
    - No cover system
    - Cognition system and use of weapons requiring it feels poorly implemented.
    - Dialogue options and their consequences feel arbitrary, unknowable and and mostly negative. Felt tedious.
    - The final straw was as follows:

    I play Ironman only and after several hours of play started a mission described as 'easy' which involved putting down a Rebellion of my own troops. I got slaughtered and it wasn't close. I was charged by multiple techpriests with untargetable who more or less one shotted my troops and two shotted my techpriests. Apparently your choices in the narrative dialogues before that mission matter and impact the objectives during it - but none of that is made clear to you in the objectives list.

    One thing I will say though is the soundtrack is fantastic. Probably would have been a 0 or 1 without. Waste of £8.
    Full Review »
  2. May 25, 2023
    1
    This game was playtested very little if at all. If you have any experience playing tactical strategy games beating this game on the hardestThis game was playtested very little if at all. If you have any experience playing tactical strategy games beating this game on the hardest difficulty proves little challenge beyond the early gameplay. Late game your weapons and upgrades are completely unbalanced. Mechanics are very poorly explained, at some point the game even goes so far as to say "just try things out, thats the way a tech priest does it" - as if they know they have forgotten to explain parts of the interface. The switch port is a nightmare, framerates drop to 5 at points, game will just stop loading. Story is not well explained, missions are repetitve, maps are recycled, rewards are either ludicrisly under or over powered. This is an embarrasment to the 40k licencing. Indie publisher bit off way more than they could chew and either ran out of passion, time, energy, money or all of the above. Models are fantastic, glyph mechanic is original, the rest of the game is not good. Full Review »
  3. Feb 1, 2022
    4
    I have not experienced any crashes or other bugs. However, this is an inexcusably sloppy cash-grab port.

    First off, the screenshots on the
    I have not experienced any crashes or other bugs. However, this is an inexcusably sloppy cash-grab port.

    First off, the screenshots on the Nintendo eShop are mostly taken from the PC version, and show visual effects such as dynamic lighting and reflections that aren't actually used in the Switch version. That's just false advertising. This version of the game doesn't look nearly as good. The Switch is capable of better graphics than we see in this port, so I'm guessing the developers just turned off graphical features rather than take the time to optimize for the Switch.

    The performance of this port is also problematic. It starts out okay, but there must be some kind of memory leak, because performance degrades the longer you have the game open. Play for a few hours without quitting and reloading the game, and you'll be fighting against extremely low framerates and stuttering. These don't make a turn-based game unplayable, but they do make taking your turn very tedious and frustrating. You can fix the issue by quitting and restarting the game.

    The controls are clunky and unintuitive. Sometimes A is the confirm button. Sometimes Y is the confirm button. When selecting a character's weapon or ability, you have to hold the right trigger to navigate the character action menu. If you accidentally try to attack a target that's out of range, your character will instead attack a random target that is in range, potentially wasting valuable CP (action points) or even throwing the mission for you. Naturally the controls can't be customized.

    I don't recommend this sloppy port unless you've already played Mechanicus on PC, love the game, and want a portable version despite the issues I've mentioned.

    The only positive aspect of this port is that it comes with the Heretek DLC included.
    Full Review »